Workers of Market Basket Go on Strike: Current Event

Current Event: Workers of Market Basket Go on Strike

Managers often face numerous challenges in the management of the affairs of the companies that they lead. Some of the most common challenges faced by managers have got to do with employee remuneration, employee motivation, change management, talent management, etc.

Two months ago, the employees of Market Basket, a supermarket chain, downed their tools and went on strike in response to an issue that caught many, especially management experts, by surprise: the dismissal of the chain's C.E.O. The workers were seeking the restatement of Arthur T. Demoulas, the chain's C.E.O, who had been fired from the supermarket amid power struggles featuring family members overseeing the management of the chain. According to industry analysts, what took place "at Market Basket is particularly unusual because the workers are not asking for higher pay or better benefits" (AP Reporter, 2014). The whole debacle brings to the fore one of the key challenges faced by the management of companies, i.e. change management. It is clear that the employees of Market Basket were not too happy with the changes being instituted at the managerial level. It is for this reason that they went on strike, demanding that the C.E.O. be immediately reinstated. This is a clear instance of resistance to change on the part of employees.

Reasons of Resistance to Change

There are numerous reasons as to why people resist change. In the words of Hellrigel and Slocum (2008, p. 501), "change involves moving from the known to the unknown." Change brings about some unfamiliar feelings. For instance, with regard to the employees of Market Basket, the change of their long serving C.E.O. made the future uncertain for them. They perhaps feared that a new management would bring unfavorable changes to the way things are done at the supermarket chain. Worse still, they could have feared that in seeking a greater return for shareholders, the new C.E.O would engage in some kind of cost cutting and retrench them.

As Hellrigel and Slocum (2008) point out, resistance to change could either be covert or overt -- with the former denoting suppressed resistance whereby employees show signs of demotivation and enhanced tardiness; and the latter being indicative of the more expressive resistance to change, whereby employees might engage in outright sabotage. In the case of Market basket, resistance to change was overt.

Handling Resistance to Change

Just as change is inevitable, Griffin and Moorhead (2013) point out that organizations cannot run away from change. The most managers could do, therefore, is learn how to manage change. Essentially, various strategies could be applied in seeking to manage resistance to change. One of the most important strategies when it comes to the management of resistance to change is communicating about the impending change in an open and honest manner. Sudden change such as that involving the replacement of Market Basket's C.E.O. is likely to catch employees off guard, sow seeds of doubt, and hence invite mistrust. In addition to permitting negotiations, communication about the impending change, as Sims (2002) points out, permits employees to make the relevant adjustments.